UAE becomes latest GCC country to join Singapore Convention on mediation

Mark Raymont and Nesreen Osman were commenting as the UAE became the latest country in the Middle East to join the Singapore Convention on mediation.

The UAE formally joined the Convention on 8 June after Federal Decree No. (85) of 2026 approved the UAE's accession. 

The Singapore Convention, which opened for signature in August 2019, aims to provide reassurance that cross-border mediation outcomes will be recognised and enforced outside of the host jurisdiction. It allows parties to an international settlement agreement which has been signed in one country to enforce or invoke that agreement in another country, provided that the country in which enforcement is sought is a member of the convention and the settlement agreement is within the convention’s scope.

However, the UAE has joined the Convention with two reservations: that it won't apply to settlement agreements involving the UAE government or its agencies; and the ‘opt-in’ reservation, which means it will only apply where the parties to the settlement agreement have agreed to its application in advance.

In keeping with the Convention's own terms, it will enter into force in the UAE six months after the instrument of accession is deposited with the UN Secretary-General, meaning the new enforcement regime will come into effect in December. From this point onwards, the Convention will apply to settlement agreements for international commercial disputes resulting from mediation.

Once in force, where parties have pre-agreed to the Convention's application, a mediated settlement of an international commercial dispute can be enforced in the UAE courts without re-litigating the merits or converting it into a judgment or arbitral award, subject to the Convention's limited grounds for refusal.

Given the UAE’s importance to the legal landscape in the Middle East, Mark Raymont, an arbitration specialist in Dubai, said its accession to the Singapore Convention marked “a significant milestone” for international dispute resolution in the region. “Mediation has always offered parties a faster and more commercial route to settlement,” he added. “The Convention now gives cross-border mediated outcomes a stronger enforcement framework, making mediation an even more compelling option for businesses operating internationally.”

The move also brings the UAE in line with several countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which are already parties to the Convention. These are Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and, most recently, Oman, which acceded in January 2026. The KSA ratified the Convention in May 2020. It came into force in November that year, but with the reservation that it would not apply to settlement agreements involving the Saudi government, its agencies or anyone acting on its behalf.

Nesreen Osman, a Dubai-based dispute resolution specialist, said the UAE’s formal accession to the Convention reflected “the growing recognition across the GCC that mediation deserves the same enforceability framework that arbitration has long enjoyed”.

Osman added that while the UAE had acceded with certain reservations – most notably the opt-in requirement – she cautioned that this should in no way diminish this significance of this development for the region. “In practice, parties who are willing to mediate are precisely those most likely to pre-agree to the Convention's application, and it is those parties who will benefit most from this new enforcement mechanism.”